The regional organisation of the International Co-operative Alliance, Cooperatives of the Americas, has appointed Danilo Salerno as regional director.
The appointment was announced after the regular meeting of the regional board of directors in Colombia on 17-18 May.
An Italian national, Mr Salerno starts his new role on 15 June. At the time of the appointment he was director of Coopermondo, an Italian NGO, which has implemented 100 co-operative development projects in more than 40 countries. Coopermondo was set up by Confcooperative, the largest apex organisation of the Italian co-operative movement.
Mr Salerno also chairs the working group on private sector engagement of the National Council for Development Cooperation, under the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2011 he has served as the Confcooperative Representative for International Development Cooperation at Cooperatives Europe’s working group on International Development Platform (CEDP).
Mr Salerno has been involved in a number of co-operative and solidarity economy organisations. As parliamentary assistant, he was part of the working group on the last reform plan of the Law 47/1987, which regulates Italian Cooperation for Development.
He also headed a research mission on cross-border co-operation carried out by the Center for Studies in International Politics (CESPI) on behalf of the Central American Integration System (SICA), and served as consultant for Latin-American networking in the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (EURICSE).
He has a degree in political science from the University of Bologna; master’s degrees in non-profit organisations and European PM (ASVI, Rome), and in European and international relations (La Sapienza University, Rome); and a diploma in Latin American Studies from the Italian-Latin American Institute, Rome.
